Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles Which .17 powder now that 4320 is gone?

Here’s a can of IMR4320 that I bought for reloading a 17 Remington Bullberry barrel for my TC G2 Contender carbine. It’s been on the shelf in my reloading room untouched for years until last week. It tipped over when I was relocating it and a cloud of brown dust puffed out and the grains of powder started spilling all over. I have six other cans of odd IMR powders of similar vintage sitting next to it that are all intact. Most were handed down to me 15 years ago from a friend that passed. [img]http://[/img]

Varget, Benchmark, IMR 8208 either of those work well in my 17 Rem

I still have a bit of 4320. That’s all I’ve ever used in 25 years of 17 rem shooting. I’ll try Benchmark.

FWIW I'm getting some good results out of 4064...

For the Hornady 25 gr hp I have always used AA2520 22.7 grains at about 3700fps fur friendly.
If I was shooting the 30 gr Berger's I used AA2700
Powder flows nice, but need to clean the barrel often. It is dirty, but cleaning the barrel is not something that bothers me.

at 24gr per load it's going to take me many years to burn through the 10 lbs of 4320 I have left. I'm certain I'll burn that barrel out first.

Have you tried the Win 6.5 StaBall6.5? That, along with CFE223 show some pretty good velocities and they are easy to pour.

I burn imr 8208 out of mine with 25 gr vmax. It was the first powder I tried after installing the barrel and it shot so good I didn’t feel the need to try anything else.

How the hell do you get it in there? 😉

I have toasted 2 , 17 Remington barrels with 4064.1 Sako and 1 Douglas. I shoot Tac, Benchmark and 748 in my 17 Remington's now.

between a 17 Fireball and time spent with the 223, I might suggest AA 2015 and AR Comp....

Are those you mentioned easier on the barrel erosion? I wouldn't think it would make much difference. Ive toasted a few 223 barrels with TAC and 748....

Educate me, cause I love my .17 and want it to last as long as possible!

Tom I really don't know if the other powders make much difference at all. I gave up on 17's for a while because of the inconsistency of the the available bullets. Hornady 25 grain HP's performance on PD"S and jacks. And the fact that I got tired of the cleaning routine I had to do.

The accuracy and consistent performance of the V-MAX and finding real nice Cooper model 21 for a price I could afford brought me back into the game.

I don't keep track of round count on barrels and simply replace them when they won't shoot as well as I'd like them to.

TAC and 748 are cleaner burning than 4064 in my experience in 17 Remington's and allow longer between cleaning.

Long drawn out way of saying I don't know. Sorry

Ramshot Big Game works great in the .17 Remington, and like CFE223 is a spherical powder so flows really well through the tiny neck.

I use Varget in my .17 Rem and my 17/204. If I had some other choices, I might try something different. But Varget works so well that I got a good stash of it on hand.

Thanks for the input...I couldn't see where there would be a big difference.

Gotta agree with you on the Hornady Vmax...they will definitely shoot better that the Hornady 25 HP, not by much, but definitely a difference. Bergers shoot well too. Im not a fan of the cleaning routine either, but I use mine primarily on predators so theres very few extended sessions with it. ( Though I cant resist on gophers once in awhile...)

Have not tried Big Game...but have great luck, as mentioned with CFE223.

Pw Pro 2000 is pretty close, some say the same as CFE223. These days, you burn what you can find. Leverevolution is pretty close to those burn rates.

I'm a big fan of BG, even got a big jug.

DF

Thanks John, I'm going to have to give Big Game a try someday.

20 gr V max 24 gr H4895 4153 fps work up